Veteran Journeys: Creating an Opera Based on Research, Clinical, and Personal Experiences

Abstract

This Open Forum describes the process of integrating personal experience; clinical experience in providing care; and research background, methods, and data in creating an arts project (i.e., an opera) highlighting veterans' resilience and recovery in the context of posttraumatic stress disorder and homelessness. Specifically, an approach of using research interviews to identify storylines and characters for veterans, along with personal and clinical experiences to frame provider characters and stories, is described to illustrate an arts-in-medicine approach to portraying recovery among veterans.